The surge of groups speaking today for low wage workers is unprecedented in Chicago.

What do they want? Who are they? What’s likely to happen?

Tonight – Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. these workers, the groups that represent them, and the community organizations and others that are standing behind them will meet to discuss the impact of low wages on Chicago at 618 S. Michigan Ave., Stage Two, Columbia College. WBEZ South Side reporter Natalie Moore will lead the discussion between the community groups and media panelists.

One group is doing both: the students carrying out restorative justice programs in Chicago schools, with little support from the central administration.

Uplift Community High School student volunteers in the school’s Peace Ambassadors program will be honored for carrying on Dr. King’s legacy in a recognition ceremony on Friday, January 17, at 9:30 a.m. The school is located at 900 W. Wilson.

Uplift’s Peace Ambassadors use peer conferencing to resolve disputes that have resulted in minor misbehavior. Students reflect on the impact of their actions and create an agreement for repairing the harm and addressing underlying issues to prevent its recurrence.

Students have gained crucial interpersonal skills while detentions and suspensions have been reduced and the school climate improved, said Ana Mercado of Alternatives, Inc., which trains students for the program.

Hosted by Pullman activist Tom Shepherd and historian Cynthia Ogorek, the tour will include talks with people who worked with Obama in his early years, including environmentalist Cheryl Johnson of People for Community Recovery in Altgeld Gardens, as well as Bea Lumpkin, who will discuss Obama’s role working to save the pensions of Wisconsin Steel workers.

Also presenting their reminiscences will be the owners of Obama’s favorite restaurant, Valois, and his barber of of 20 years, Zarif of the Hyde Park Hair Salon.

The tour will also address the burning question of where Obama’s presidential library will end up.

It takes place Sunday, November 10, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., departing from the Chicago Cultural Center. The $59 ticket includes lunch at Valois. Info at ForgottenChicago.com.

Parents and supporters of Ames Middle School are ramping up efforts to defend the community school from political interference.

Dozens of Ames parents are set to canvas the neighborhood Saturday morning to register voters and spread the word about community meetings being held by the LSC on Tuesday. They’ll hold a press conference at 11 a.m. at Ames, 1920 N. Hamlin.

Meanwhile, Ames’s Local School Council has heard nothing from CPS about what is planned for the school, according to an organizer for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. The LSC will meet at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, with a community meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. that day.

As a community partner for Ames, LSNA coordinates a range of academic, social, and health support programming for students as well as activities for parents and community members, including ESL, literacy and math-science workshops. LSNA is nationally acclaimed for the success of its community learning center model.

Ames far outperforms Marine academically, according to LSNA, which calls Marine Academy a “pushout factory,” graduating just 56.5 percent of its freshman class four years later.

Mark Brown reported last December that enrollment declined at Ames when CPS removed two local elementary schools as feeders for the middle school. Brown suggested that Ald. Robert Maldonado, the main proponent of moving the Marine Academy into the Ames building, ought to “suck it up” and meet with Ames parents.

And Raise Your Hand notes in its weekly update that the Ames plan (whatever it is) is one of a slew of newly-announced projects — incuding a $17 million upgrade of Walter Payton High School and a new Noble charter high school across the street from Prosser High — that are nowhere mentioned in the district’s brand-new facilities plan.

“What was the point of the ten-year master facilities plan?” they ask.

African American families in Chicago and nationwide have been hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, particularly with mortgage lenders exploiting a long history of discrimination in lending and housing. But what happens when they challenge the banks that have evicted millions of families and destroyed their life savings and economic security?

Author Laura Gottesdiener will discuss the book, joined by Martha Biggs and Ebonee Stevenson of CAEC and Jim Harbin from the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, 5733 S. University, Wednesday, October 30 at 6 p.m.

Tuesday is the 50th aniversary of the 1963 Chicago school boycott, and a commemoration at DuSable Museum features a panel discussion and a screening of highlights from Kartenquin Films’ documentary-in-progress, 63 Boycott.

The panel — on “Lessons from the 1963 Boycott – The Struggle for Quality Education in Chicago Then and Now” – features Rosie Simpson and Fannie Rushing, leaders of the ’63 boycott, along with CTU president Karen Lewis, historian Elizabeth Todd-Breland of UIC, and Jasson Perez of the Black Youth Project.

The free event takes place Tuesday, October 22, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th Place.

On October 22, 1963, 250,000 CPS students boycotted school and thousands marched downtown. They targetted the segregationist policies of CPS superintendent Ben Willis, under which students in black schools were crammed into classrooms and mobile units and taught in split shits, while nearby white schools had empty classrooms. Spending on white schools was 50 percent higher than black schools.

The People’s World has a retrospective that highlights the role of the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations and the Congress of Racial Equality. NewsOne credits the Chicago Area Friends of SNCC — a group which held its own commemoration two years ago.

“The boycott and a demonstration by thousands of students and supporters in the Loop was a huge success. The outcome was somewhat limited, though: Willis was forced to resign, but school segregation continues to this day, [Sylvia] Fischer [of Chicago SNCC] said.

“In 1980 a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice resulted in a court ordered desegregation plan, but by then many white familes had moved to the suburbs, and many others had moved their children to private and parochial schools. By the 1990s, two-thirds of Chicago’s white students were in private schools. Today the city has a majority black public school system and a majority white private school system.

“The court order was lifted in 2009 over the objections of civil rights groups and students, who pointed to continuing inequities in Chicago schools. In a blow to school desegregation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007, in a 5-to-4 decision, that using race as a factor in public school admissions is unconstitutional.”

A coalition of community, labor and religious groups will hold a press conference at 9 a.m., on Friday, September 27 at the Thompson Center press room and march over to the Bilandic Building, 160 N. LaSalle, to a House Revenue Committee hearing on the Illinois Corporate Responsibility and Tax Disclosure Act.

The state’s crisis threaten to swamp the budgets of cities and school districts as well as funding for human services and health care, but “the only solutions that are ever discussed are deeper and deeper cuts,” said Kristi Sanford of Northside POWER, part of a statewide coalition pushing for corporate tax accountability. “But these cuts just hurt Illinois families and the state’s economy — and no amount of cuts can solve the problem.”

Corporations reporting billions in profits are estimated to have paid no state income tax.

We don’t know what individual corporations are paying, but major Illinois-based corporations — with massive profits — paid no federal income tax from 2008 to 2010 (in some cases receiving huge tax subsidies instead), according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

Who’s not paying?

And since state taxes track federal taxes, advocates say we can probably assume no Illinois income taxes were paid over those years by Boeing, with $14 billion in profits; Baxter International, with $1.3 billion in profits; Integrys Energy Group, with nearly $1.18 billion in profits; and Navistar International, with $1.1 billion in profits.

The problem is that for too long, corporations have entirely dominated tax policy debates, according to Dan Bucks, former director of revenue Montana, who advocates for corporate tax accountability measures. He backs a measure now under consideration here to encourage greater public participation by requiring large publicly-traded corporations operating in Illinois to disclose their state income tax payments.

The NFL and LISC are donating $200,000 to construction of a new artificial turf soccer and football field at Kelly Park, a major win in a two-year campaign to win renovation of the Southwest Side park.

Mark Bachleda and Ramon Salazar of Brighton Park Neighborhood Council made the announcement at the first annual Brighton Park Fest held Saturday at Kelly Park by BPNC to raise funds for the renovation.

Hundreds of residents turned out for games and festivities, with booths featuring local restaurants.

Pat Levar, chief operating officer of the Chicago Park District, announced the district would contribute $500,000 in capital funds for the field. Previously State Senator Martin Sandoval had won a $210,000 state appropriation for the project.

Sara Reschly of BPNC, chair of the Kelly Park Advisory Council, said CPS had indicated it would kick in the balance of the $1.2 million needed for the field.

Brian Richter, assistant principal of Kelly High, exulted that Kelly’s boys’ soccer team, now in the running for its second citywide championship in a row, would have a real soccer field across the street from the school for practice and games.

In 20 years as a teacher and administrator at Kelly, he said, he’d “watched the park continue to deteriorate….We’re so pleased our children are finally going to get the park they deserve.”

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By Stephen Franklin Community Media Workshop A 3-year-old child died on a plane from Chicago to Poland. This, Magdalena Pantelis instantly knew, was a story her readers would care about. But she needed more detail to write about it for the Polish Daily News, the nation’s oldest daily newspaper in Polish, founded Jan. […]

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